400,000 Gallons of Radioactive Water Leaked from a Nuclear Plant in Minnesota (apnews.com) 166
"Minnesota regulators said Thursday they're monitoring the cleanup of a leak of 400,000 gallons of radioactive water from Xcel Energy's Monticello nuclear power plant," reports the Associated Press, "and the company said there's no danger to the public."
"Xcel Energy took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment," the Minneapolis-based utility said in a statement. While Xcel reported the leak of water containing tritium to state and federal authorities in late November, the spill had not been made public before Thursday.
State officials said they waited to get more information before going public with it.... "Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information," said Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Michael Rafferty, adding the water remains contained on Xcel's property and poses no immediate public health risk.
The company said it notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state on Nov. 22, the day after it confirmed the leak, which came from a pipe between two buildings. Since then, it has been pumping groundwater, storing and processing the contaminated water, which contains tritium levels below federal thresholds. "Ongoing monitoring from over two dozen on-site monitoring wells confirms that the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water," the Xcel Energy statement said.
When asked why Xcel Energy didn't notify the public earlier, the company said: "We understand the importance of quickly informing the communities we serve if a situation poses an immediate threat to health and safety. In this case, there was no such threat."
State officials said they waited to get more information before going public with it.... "Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information," said Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesman Michael Rafferty, adding the water remains contained on Xcel's property and poses no immediate public health risk.
The company said it notified the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state on Nov. 22, the day after it confirmed the leak, which came from a pipe between two buildings. Since then, it has been pumping groundwater, storing and processing the contaminated water, which contains tritium levels below federal thresholds. "Ongoing monitoring from over two dozen on-site monitoring wells confirms that the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water," the Xcel Energy statement said.
When asked why Xcel Energy didn't notify the public earlier, the company said: "We understand the importance of quickly informing the communities we serve if a situation poses an immediate threat to health and safety. In this case, there was no such threat."
That's an expensive spill (Score:2)
Tritium costs $30,000/gram. I bet it's pretty though!
Re: (Score:2)
You can't separate the tritium from the water in any practical way. That's why this water with tritium is there in the first place: you can filter out almost every other substance in one way or another, but getting all the tritium out is very hard.
Re:That's an expensive spill (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't separate the tritium from the water in any practical way. That's why this water with tritium is there in the first place: you can filter out almost every other substance in one way or another, but getting all the tritium out is very hard.
Ontario Power Generation (then known as Ontario Hydro) commissioned a Tritium Removal Facility (TRF) at its Darlington nuclear station (near Toronto, Ontario) in 1990. This facility chemically extracts tritium from the moderator water of all of Ontario Power Generation's CANDU reactors
https://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_... [nuclearfaq.ca]
Physical not Chemical (Score:5, Informative)
This facility chemically extracts tritium from the moderator water of all of Ontario Power Generation's CANDU reactors
You can't chemically extract it - it has to be a physical process (and the web page you linked actually describes a physical process despite what it says) because tritium is an isotope of hydrogen and reacts the same way as hydrogen, the only difference is the mass of the nucleus. That's why it is so hard to extract: isotope separation is not at all easy because you can't use a chemical process, which is a very good thing because if it were simple to do it would be very easy to make nuclear weapons.
Re:Physical not Chemical (Score:4, Interesting)
This facility chemically extracts tritium from the moderator water of all of Ontario Power Generation's CANDU reactors
You can't chemically extract it - it has to be a physical process (and the web page you linked actually describes a physical process despite what it says) because tritium is an isotope of hydrogen and reacts the same way as hydrogen, the only difference is the mass of the nucleus. That's why it is so hard to extract: isotope separation is not at all easy because you can't use a chemical process, which is a very good thing because if it were simple to do it would be very easy to make nuclear weapons.
Pretty sure vapour phase catalytic extraction is a chemical process. I'll give you the distillation though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Chemically, tritium is identical to deuterium or protium. As is deuterium.
OK, sure. Fortunately people smarter than you continue to work on these things.
https://ec.europa.eu/research-... [europa.eu]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If you come up with an easy solution, the folks at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) would love to talk to you. They've been searching for a solution for over 10 years. Experts have concluded that there is no tritium separation technology that is immediately applicable to treated water with low concentrations and large volumes.
https://www.meti.go.jp/english... [meti.go.jp]
Re:Physical not Chemical (Score:5, Informative)
Chemically, tritium is identical to deuterium or protium. As is deuterium.
That's mostly true, but not entirely. Tritium and protium undergo the same reactions but at different rates. This is especially true for catalyzed reactions that depend on the shape of the water molecule. The tritium-oxygen bond in THO is several picometers longer than H2O bonds and the bond angle is a few degrees smaller.
Re: (Score:2)
Tritium and protium undergo the same reactions but at different rates.
This. I think the technical term is the different isotopes have different bond disassociation enthalpies.
Re: Physical not Chemical (Score:2)
Different enough to matter at industrial scale?
Re: (Score:3)
Chemically, tritium is identical to deuterium or protium. As is deuterium.
I feel like there's an obligatory Star Trek reference missing from all this radioactive element technobabble.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The increased masses mean that deuterated and tritiated water have clearly different melting points, boiling points, viscosities, etc. Any other chemical containing hydrogen that involves hydrogen bonding would experience similar changes. In particular, living organisms will die if a large enough fraction of their light hydrogen is replaced by deuterium because its chemistry is different.
Re: Physical not Chemical (Score:3)
Re: Physical not Chemical (Score:2)
And With One News Story... (Score:3, Insightful)
With a single news story, this threatens to send US nuclear electricity generation - the only real alternative to fossil fuels that will actually deliver all day every day - back into NIMBY land where only fairytales and gumdrops are explored as "serious" sources of energy.
Re:And With One News Story... (Score:4, Insightful)
Quick, we need another news story claiming that a wind farm is polluting the groundwater.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: And With One News Story... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I can just see Windborne anonymously submitting them furiously already.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like a touchy subject there.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
With a single news story
Nothing changed. People with a low IQ were afraid already and will continue to be afraid now. People who put the tiniest bit of thought into what is going on will realise that we just spilled radioactive contaminated water and it turned out to be a nothingburger.
Re: (Score:2)
we just spilled radioactive contaminated water and it turned out to be a nothingburger.
It is a nothingburger in the sense that the amount of radiation is negligible and no one will be harmed.
It is not a nothingburger in the sense that fewer voters will believe nukes are built and run by people who know what they're doing and can be trusted.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not a nothingburger in the sense that fewer voters will believe nukes are built and run by people who know what they're doing and can be trusted.
No. A story like this doesn't sway anyone. Anti-nuke people will remain anti-nuke people, and people who can think will see it for what it is.
Re: (Score:2)
It happened last year but they kept it quiet until now.
They are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Announce as soon as it becomes known and people panic. Announce when you are certain of the details and people are upset they were kept in the dark.
Re: (Score:2)
From the article, they did disclose it to the authorities, the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the State, as soon as they discovered it. I guess it was a joint decision with those authorities to delay the announcement to the public.
Not sure why though, the problem was benign enough to not make people panic.
I mean, 400000 gallons of water is ~70% of an olympic-size swimming pool. With tritium levels below federal thresholds (which are already conservative).
On the other hand, just the electricity ge [minnpost.com]
Re: And With One News Story... (Score:2)
Yeah it's the story and not the event that's the problem.
Pro tip: This isn't an appropriate article to throw the term "nimby" around. The reason you lot call people Nimbys is because "profit-driven shortcuts to safety" isn't an argument you've found a solution to.
Re: (Score:2)
A NIMBY is someone who supports X but wants it done somewhere else.
Low-income housing is a NIMBY issue. Most people want more low-income housing to be built, but don't want it in their neighborhood.
Anti-nukes are not NIMBYs. They oppose nuclear power in principle, not just in their neighborhood.
Re: And With One News Story... (Score:2)
I don't think your like-minded buddies subscribe to your pu
Re: And With One News Story... (Score:2)
My apologies, I bumped the submit button before I was done writing.
I don't think your like-minded buddies subscribe the philosophy you have stated. I have no doubt there are obnoxious extremists who want absolutely no use of nuclear period. But if they're bad, then so is unconditional evangelism of nuclear technology. Complaining that the problem here is the story and not the incident itself, even if it did have a no-harm-done resolution, is a step in the wrong direction. Accountability and transparency
Re: And With One News Story... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah it's the story and not the event that's the problem.
Pro tip: This isn't an appropriate article to throw the term "nimby" around. The reason you lot call people Nimbys is because "profit-driven shortcuts to safety" isn't an argument you've found a solution to.
There's a very, very easy solution to that problem. Ban profits on electricity. Require that all power companies, from generation to consumer-side distribution be nonprofit corporations and cap the salaries for their C-suites. No profits = no motivation to take shortcuts to turn a higher profit.
Of course, that's the one solution that pretty much every political party will disagree with....
Re: (Score:2)
The three mile island thing was kind of scary because it was next door to Hershey Pennsylvania where all the cheap kids chocolate is made. I donâ(TM)t know if this is significant. It is going to contaminate the wat
Re: (Score:2)
You’re right. Let’s cover it up instead.
Wind and solar (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear power plants can be safe but not in the country like America. We love privatizing things and we love cutting corners for short-term profits. And we love our lobbyists and we love our bombastic and loud and incompetent politicians instead of our quiet and boring administrators.
If you want nuclear power in
Re: (Score:2)
The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week.
In other words, exactly the kind of power profile that wind and solar do not have. And the reason we don't have new nuclear plants in the US is sociopolitical in exactly the opposite way of what you claim; as someone else described above, it's because we impose ridiculous constraints that make every nuclear plant a unique, special, prohibitively expensive and slow snowflake.
That kind of flatly wrong bullshit is why trolls target you.
Re: (Score:2)
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese media was pointing to US plants that had made the kinds of upgrades that might have make the disaster much less severe, and which other Japanese plants had yet to perform.
Nuclear safety is a mess. Nobody can agree on what is necessary or proportionate. The operators are lobbying for the absolute minimum to keep costs down. The effectiveness of regulators depends who the current government stuffs them with.
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear safety is a mess.
Yes nuclear-based power is the one with the least deaths/mWH produced.
Nobody can agree on what is necessary or proportionate
The fact that you don't agree, or that anti-nuke people don't agree does not make it "nobody can agree". Same as because some climate change deniers don't want to believe in it, it doesn't make it much less real. And nobody (well, except the deniers of course) says "nobody can agree on whether climate change is real or not".
The operators are lobbying for the absolute minimum to keep costs down.
That is just plainly wrong and false, at least in France. EDF is liaible if problems occur, same as the other compan
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And With One News Story... (Score:4, Insightful)
We've seen nuclear power plants built in less than a decade quite often. The mean time to build is under 8 years. Look at the UAE for a recent example on building in under 8 years and under $12 billion per reactor. The plant wasn't less than $12 billion but each reactor came under that price. Perhaps I recall incorrectly, I'm sure someone will chime in to correct me. It has four reactors that total to something like five gigawatts, or at least that's the plan once the last reactor comes on line.
We don't look to outliers like Watts Bar to define an entire industry. What was done in UAE looks to be pretty typical though. Again, if I'm wrong then I expect someone to provide a correction.
Re:And With One News Story... (Score:5, Interesting)
The UAE reactors were built by KEPCO, the Korean energy chaebol. They do not have a stellar record in terms of following the rules regarding building nuclear reactors. The financial corruption that taints a lot of Korean business practices is also a worry.
Saying that the KP1400 reactor design the UAE went for was one they had recent experience in building in Korea, the parts chain for large components was well-established and the engineering teams up to speed. The four reactors were all the same, something that also helps get the later ones completed in a shorter timescale.
Chinese 1GW new-build PWRs go from first concrete pours to grid connection in about six or seven years, depending on a few factors. Again there is serial production of a few standard designs, large components are not one-offs requiring the making of tooling from scratch, specialist construction teams are experienced in their roles rather than first-timers learning on the job etc.
Re: (Score:2)
To play devil's advocate, there are some disadvantages to such consistency. If all the power plants are designed identically and they screw something up in the design, they'll all be designed wrong, and if one fails catastrophically for some reason....
Re: (Score:3)
However, the alternative to standardized plant designs
Re:And With One News Story... (Score:4, Informative)
The stress corrosion problem in the French M910 rectors was in a secondary safety system, not a primary safety system or operational nuclear components. The reactors didn't need to be shut down for an inspection to discover the problem but they had to be shut down for the problem to be fixed since licence requirements meant they couldn't operate a given reactor without that safety system being available.
There was a delay in bringing most of the French reactor fleet into production at the beginning of winter 2022 so at times they were only generating 30GW or so of non-CO2 emissions electricity whereas normally by that time of the year they'd have 40GW or so being produced. They reached that 40GW point in January 2023 though.
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from the fact that pouring concrete is actually years into the process of planning a nuclear power station, are we sure that the Chinese ones are actually any good? I doubt that the CCP would be letting us know if they experienced serious accidents.
Re: (Score:2)
The "first concrete pour" is a good marker point for the commencement of a project, a bit like laying the keel of a ship or constructing the foundations for a house. There's real metal and concrete and other materials being invested, not just intangibles like planning applications and lawyers and surveyors and architectural drawings.
If things go badly wrong after the first concrete pour (Flamanville EPR cough cough) then it's very obvious. When there is a pattern of step-and-repeat reactor builds where the
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a good marker for nuclear plants, because they take many years of planning and site surveys to get to that stage. You can't just build one anywhere, it has to be geologically stable, have adequate cooling water, and adequate services like roads and grid connections. That last one means the local government has to be involved to ensure infrastructure is provided.
Re: (Score:2)
Every substantial construction takes decades of planning applications, reports, examinations, public consultations etc. Here in the UK we have the Hornsea 3 offshore wind turbine project. The project inception meeting was in March 2016 but the proponents had been working on the technical plans for it for a few years by that time. As of today, over seven years later the application process is still grinding its way through the paperwork, submissions, public consultations, expert reports and legal requirement
Re: (Score:2)
Hornsea is an exception though. Most wind and solar goes through very quickly. The main delay with offshore wind is auctioning off the rights.
Re: (Score:2)
The UAE uses what amounts to slave labour. Appalling conditions and a visa system that traps people in them.
Your timeline is off too. The contract was awarded in 2009, and while Wikipedia is light on details it must have been decided to build it well before then, followed by a search for a suitable location, geological surveys etc. Total time will have been a lot more than 8 years.
In any case, it's much easier to build stuff in a monarchy, or a dictatorship like China.
Re: (Score:2)
Democrats now support nuclear power
Got a citation for that?
A 2022 Gallup poll [gallup.com] found that 39% of Democrats versus 60% of Republicans and 53% of independents favor nuclear energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Got a citation for that?
Here's a cite:
https://democrats.org/where-we... [democrats.org]
It's a long document so I suggest searching for "nuclear" to find the relevant points.
Re: (Score:2)
Got a citation for that?
A 2022 Gallup poll [gallup.com] found that 39% of Democrats versus 60% of Republicans and 53% of independents favor nuclear energy.
A poll of the people has nothing to do with the policy of a political party.
Re: (Score:2)
They did tell the authorities right after they discovered it though. Not sure if you can call that a "cover-up". Or maybe we don't have the same definition of what a cover-up is.
How much total radiation was released (Score:4, Insightful)
The water's not polluted, by law? (Score:5, Informative)
This water contains levels of tritium below Federal limits, so there's no actual risk?
I read an interesting anecdote about the Three Mile Island power plant the other day, which also had a large amount of slightly tritiated water but below any regulatory limits (the Fukushima plant also has a lot of that). The nuclear-phobes denied them permission to dispose of it in the river by the plant, so they came up with an ingenious solution: they cut the top off the tank and let it evaporate. They added some heaters to speed the process up, and it was gone in a couple of years. No permission required for that, as the water was not a regulated waste product (or a regulated non-waste product).
Re: (Score:3)
They added some heaters to speed the process up, and it was gone in a couple of years.
...which is a pretty important detail.
Tritium is a highly radioactive isotope of hydrogen which creates beta radiation (the extra neutron decays into an electron and another proton IIRC), with a half-life of days. Which means that it is soon enough "gone", and the decay products are not radioactive, but if you ingest it, it will create a great deal of damage from the inside of your body within a very short time span. (...with beta radiation having a very, very large scattering cross section, meaning the exa
Re:The water's not polluted, by law? (Score:4, Informative)
I Googled the half-life of Tritium. Here is what Google says, "Like all radioactive isotopes, tritium decays. As it decays, it emits beta radiation. The physical half-life of tritium is 12.33 years, meaning that it takes just over 12 years for tritium to decay to half of its original amount."
That also matches the Wikipedia article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I stand corrected (somehow I had other numbers in the back of my head).
Anyway, it's "short enough" that it's still within a manageable amount of time (...as opposed to: centuries or millenia).
Still better to evaporate it over years than to pour it all in one spot with one big spash.
Re: The water's not polluted, by law? (Score:3)
This isn't how radiation works.
Beta radiation is ionizing radiation with a large scattering cross section, meaning it's made up of "big looking" particles. Thisnin turn means it "reacts" strongly witj whatever it meets.
This is the reason why it doesn't penetrate very deeply, and this is why.you're led to believe it's bot "that harmful." But when it's inside your body, it also means it's not going to just get out without interacting witj tissue, like for instance gamma would. It will interact verybl strongly
Re: (Score:2)
Tritium leaks are actually extremely common at US nuclear sites.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbn... [nbcnews.com]
48 of 65 sites tested were found to have tritium leaks.
While the levels in the water are currently below the federal limit, it is still important to take action to prevent it accumulating. And to fix the leak, obviously.
Exactly HOW radioactive? (Score:4, Insightful)
The “radioactive water” stored on the site of a nuclear plant could be deadly, or it could be several times more radioactive than orange juice, in which case you could drink it for your entire lifetime and be perfectly fine, despite the government labeling it as “radioactive”.
The details really, REALLY matter.
I know that it’s a bad idea to withhold public information. This is gonna get me instantly downmodded, but as I get older I’m starting to realize that, sometimes, too much information is actually be a bad thing. Straight-up counterproductive. The average florida man is entirely incapable of processing these concepts. All he will hear is “RADIOACTIVE”, then he’ll think about what he heard from Tucker Carlson about George Soros, mush everything together into some horrific idiotic conclusion, and then head to the voting booth.
Ignorance is not bliss, but a lot of people are simply incapable of processing complex technical knowledge.
Re:Exactly HOW radioactive? (Score:5, Informative)
The “radioactive water” stored on the site of a nuclear plant could be deadly, or it could be several times more radioactive than orange juice, in which case you could drink it for your entire lifetime and be perfectly fine, despite the government labeling it as “radioactive”.
The details really, REALLY matter.
Assuming that when they say "below federal thresholds", they mean below federal drinking water thresholds, that means they expect people to get no more than 4 mrem per year, or 11 microrem per day, or 110 banana-equivalent doses per day.
If so, then this is basically an eye roll. The only real concern from such a small leak would be that it might be a harbinger of future leaks, and that loss of coolant would be a very bad thing. When it comes to the things one can worry about when it comes to nuclear reactors, leaking such a small amount of tritium-infused water probably ranks just above worrying about workers having to use an offsite restroom because of a toilet malfunction, and just below a door being hard to open because of the building settling.... :-D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tritium isn't really indicative of leaks, it seeps through everything. It's even present "naturally" through cosmic ray bombardment of water.
As you point out this is probably less radioactive than a banana.
I would love to lobby for the NRC to apply their rules to all goods and commerce. Only then would people understand the lunacy of the NRC when it takes two hours of scanning to enter the grocery store and complete the paperwork for removing a banana from a storage cask to a lead lined basket.
Recently read
Re: (Score:2)
It will be the limit for water in general, since you can get tritium in you through your skin as well as by drinking it.
The "banana equivalent dose" is a useless metric, because it depends very much on how much the particular substance in question bioaccumulates in your body, and the bodies of animals, and in plants. Fortunately tritium doesn't accumulate much because it is usually passed out of the body in a week or two. The risk is therefore low.
Bananas contain potassium, which the body regulates so it is
Re: (Score:2)
The "banana equivalent dose" is a useless metric, because it depends very much on how much the particular substance in question bioaccumulates in your body, and the bodies of animals, and in plants.
It's not *entirely* useless in this case — I'm comparing the approximate total radiation exposure from eating 110 bananas per day to the approximate maximum total radiation exposure from consuming water for a year — but yes, that choice of unit was mostly snarky. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Tritium is a beta-emitter, with a half-life of ~12 years.
That is radioactive enough that in a concentrated form it glows visibly, but you can safely handle it with your bare hands -the radiation will not penetrate skin. I have seen watches with tritium paint on the face/dials so that they glow in the dark.
Re: (Score:2)
The details really, REALLY matter.
So does language.
We don't refer as "radioactive" to what is within normal levels of natural isotope distribution.
Ignorance is not bliss, but a lot of people are simply incapable of processing complex technical knowledge.
...to which the solution isn't less information and technical details, is it?
Queue the nuclear power geeks and shills (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd buy that cheaper house downwind from a nuclear power plant. That's an easy choice to make since I already live downwind from a nuclear power plant, there was no discount for this though.
Wind and solar PV are not going to be replacing coal anywhere any time soon. Not unless this area has gobs of hydroelectric power available for cheap and fast acting backup power for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Such places tend to be disinterested in wind and solar because they already have p
Re:Queue the nuclear power geeks and shills (Score:4, Interesting)
Queue the nuclear power geeks and shills to chant "but modern designs are wonderfully safe!".
I wonder if they were offered two homes, everything equal, but one was $20,000 cheaper and down the road from a nuclear power plant which house they would choose.
I don't know if it is accurate, but I have seen a lot of headlines how wind and photovoltaic solar are coming close to being able to replace goal.
Given that, who would want poisons with a half life of 10,000 years?
You've pointed out one of the best PR points for the nuclear industry. Anyone working at a nuclear plant is very well compensated, right down to the janitors. Most are very highly educated. Virtually all of them choose to live within the evacuation zone of the nuclear facilities they work at. They raise their kids there and they have assets heavily exposed in the event of an issue. Its such a well known phenomena that anti nuclear organizations like Greenpeace have accused the nuclear industry of "brainwashing" local communities, because typically there is strong support for nuclear power among people that actually live near nuclear power plants. A lot of that is simply that people in these communities trust their neighbors, and see all the practical good these plants do in terms of cheap reliable electricity and local tax funding.
So you tell me what you think that means. I'd take your $20,000 house in a heart beat. You'd be giving me not only a cheaper house, but a guaranteed well funded school district and local services, with neighbors well above the median salary and education level who are regularly screened for drug use and mental stability. In fact I technically own one, I'm in an evacuation zone (which, to be fair, many major metro areas in the US and Europe are). You know what I wouldn't take? A discounted house across the street from a wind turbine. The wind turbine would be far more likely to be an irritant, it's proven to lower home values in the surrounding area, and provides far less in terms of taxes for the local community.
The optics matters (Score:3, Insightful)
For everyone dismissing this as just fearmongering or shrugging their shoulders, what this does say is the plant fucked up and had an uncontrolled leak, which leads to concerns like 'how did it happen', 'what else could happen', and 'is this plant being well and safely managed'. So yeah, it is a big deal.
"... released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location." If you lived nearby you might not be so nonchalant about it
Re: (Score:2)
For everyone dismissing this as just fearmongering or shrugging their shoulders, what this does say is the plant fucked up and had an uncontrolled leak, which leads to concerns like 'how did it happen', 'what else could happen', and 'is this plant being well and safely managed'.
Exactly this. It might have been tritium, which the proponents are kind of acting like it was a health tonic.
But if a plant could release almost half a million gallons of this perfectly safe material, they could possibly leak something a bit more dangerous.
You and I will probably get modded to oblivion for pointing out such a truth.
Remember that time there was a solar spill (Score:3, Interesting)
But "all power generation strategies have their pros and cons", amirite?
Re: Remember that time there was a solar spill (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I don't remember that, but I found an article on it.
https://www.latimes.com/busine... [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
and
https://dtsc.ca.gov/solar-pane... [ca.gov]
and while solar is pretty clean, its not clearly better than nuclear
https://ourworldindata.org/saf... [ourworldindata.org]
Nothing wrong with solar, I think it has a major place in energy production, but I think Nuclear has a place as well I
Re: (Score:2)
* It's more expensive to find, mine, and refine the materials for nuclear reactors than photovoltaics.
* More expensive to protec
Re: (Score:2)
and they had to clean up all that toxic sunlight to avoid it seeping into the water table? LOL. But "all power generation strategies have their pros and cons", amirite?
Deaths directly attributable to nuclear power over the entire history of mankind: forty-something. Most at Chernobyl, one at Fukushima. Plus one freak accident when someone was impaled on a control rod blown out of experimental reactor, can't remember where that was.
Deaths directly attributable to solar power (accidents during installation of rooftop panels):
over three hundred.
EVERY
FUCKING
YEAR
IN US ALONE.
Got anything more to add?
Tritium decays quickly (Score:5, Informative)
Tritium's half-life is 12.33 years. If the leak is dilute enough to be within federal limits today, then a century from now (8 half-lives) it will be a factor of 256 weaker.
I've done zero independent research into the hydrology of this site. Often, groundwater moves slowly. It's at least plausible to me that the combination of dilution and time could make this event free of any serious health consequences. However, if a leak like this was unintended then perhaps there are not enough safeguards in place. Were we just lucky that a more persistent or toxic substance wasn't involved this time?
Re: (Score:2)
The beta particle emitted is also remarkably gutless at 5.7 kev.
The decay daughter is helium 3, that's not going to cause trouble either.
If your fate is to go wading through a pool of radioactive water, pick tritium as the isotope.
Mandatory metric conversion for non-US people (Score:2)
400 000 gallons 1 514 165 L 1514.16 cubic meters
Re: (Score:2)
More usefully, about 60% of an Olympic swimming pool.
And the only reason you even know about it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is because the nuclear industry is so incredibly safe, and takes care with the most minor of issues.
storing and processing the contaminated water, which contains tritium levels below federal thresholds
Re: (Score:2)
My trust level in getting the energy we need from wind, water, sun, and biomass, is zero. So, where does that leave us?
Re: (Score:2)
My trust level in getting the energy we need from wind, water, sun, and biomass, is zero. So, where does that leave us?
It probably leaves us with a future where wasting electricity to cool/heat rooms you're not even occupying becomes a luxury only for the rich. Cheap, abundant energy has traditionally come with externalized costs, whether it's the carbon footprint from burning fossil fuels, or the potential for disaster and waste disposal problems of nuclear.
Yeah, it does suck that previous generations got a nice free lunch by kicking the can down the road, but they stuck us with the tab.
Re: (Score:2)
My trust level in getting the energy we need from wind, water, sun, and biomass, is zero. So, where does that leave us?
The difference between your "trust level" and the one of your parent poster is that, eventually, if you wait and do nothing, reality will catch up and you might end up with electricity "from wind, water, sun, and biomass" out of your wall outlet none the less. Even if you were right, your level of (dis)trust does not stop the world from spinning, and letting everyone else try to prove you wrong isn't harmful.
But this isn't the case for the parent poster's context.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Simple: You: stupid, me: realist. Any questions?
Re: (Score:2)
They only admit to having a problem and there being danger when the smoking ruin is hard to hide. That does not mean there actually was danger in this case, but my trust-level in what this utterly corrupt industry claims is zero.
They reported it voluntarily, because the leak was far below even the reporting standards. Nobody made a big deal about it because there simply isn't a reason to. It's also one of the most heavily regulated industries on the planet, and the culture in the US in particular is extremely proactive. There is a very real understanding in that industry that even when there isn't any risk just the perception that there could be can do irreparable damage. To call it "corrupt" displays an almost laughable level of
Re: (Score:2)
They only admit to having a problem and there being danger when the smoking ruin is hard to hide. That does not mean there actually was danger in this case, but my trust-level in what this utterly corrupt industry claims is zero.
I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't Chinese infiltrators trying to destroy the USA's fine, fine infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
They only admit to having a problem and there being danger when the smoking ruin is hard to hide. That does not mean there actually was danger in this case, but my trust-level in what this utterly corrupt industry claims is zero.
I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't Chinese infiltrators trying to destroy the USA's fine, fine infrastructure.
Oh, they are doing that. Very efficiently, I may add. By doing nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
They only admit to having a problem and there being danger when the smoking ruin is hard to hide. That does not mean there actually was danger in this case, but my trust-level in what this utterly corrupt industry claims is zero.
I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't Chinese infiltrators trying to destroy the USA's fine, fine infrastructure.
Oh, they are doing that. Very efficiently, I may add. By doing nothing.
Because America must defend the world from them even though they are just sitting there looking menacing! And spend all the money on military instead of that silly infrastructure!!!
Re: (Score:2)
While that doubtlessly was meant to be funny, it has more of a kernel of truth.
Re: (Score:2)
They only admit to having a problem and there being danger when the smoking ruin is hard to hide. That does not mean there actually was danger in this case, but my trust-level in what this utterly corrupt industry claims is zero.
Science (you know, actual nuclear engineers who study this stuff, the smart guys, unlike you) says modern nuclear reactors are a safe and effective energy source. So. Either STFU, or stand in league with antivaxxers, AGW deniers and tinfoil hatters. The choice is yours.